A Day With Broadway's White Knights

Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart Take on Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter

By

Stefanie Cohen

Nov. 25, 2013 10:34 p.m. ET

The heady questions of life, love, loss, memory and meaning were examined by four masters of their craft Sunday—the playwrights Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter and the actors Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart.

The actors, along with Shuler Hensley and Billy Crudup, performed a double bill of Mr. Pinter's "No Man's Land" and Mr. Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" for the opening day of the run at Broadway's Cort Theater. Both shows are directed by Sean Mathias.

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Actors Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart perform a dance during curtain call at the opening night of "Waiting For Godot."
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Liv Tyler and Billy Crudup
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Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart
Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan

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Shuler Hensley
Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan

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Director Sean Mathias
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The existential riddles of life weren't, in the end, solved, but it wasn't for lack of effort.

Messrs. Stewart and McKellen (both have been knighted) went toe-to-toe as two writers who may or may not be friends in "No Man's Land;" and then as two lovable but lost tramps, Didi and Gogo, in "Godot."

Audience members, who included Patti Smith, Kyle MacLachlan, Edward Hibbert, Orlando Bloom, Liv Tyler, Padma Lakshmi, Yul Vazquez and Alan Cumming, went wild for the two men, who made everyone feel a little uneasy about life's trajectory during "Land" and made everyone feel a little better about life's absurdity in "Godot."

But at the opening party at the Bryant Park Grill after the long day of theater, everyone tried, for a moment, to put aside existential angst and celebrate.

Mr. McKellen, in a blue velvet blazer and a polka-dots pocket square, said the kerchief was a gift from Mr. Hensley, who gives him one on stage to wipe away a character's tears.

"There were no tears tonight, though," he said, smiling.

He refrained from talking about Mr. Beckett or his views on the human condition. "I can't get into that right now," he sighed politely. "It's far too late at night."

Mr. Stewart, on the other hand, was game. He offered a glimpse of the wisdom gained from performing back to back Pinter and Beckett plays that deal with the problem of being alive. When asked if he knows the meaning of life, he replied: "Yes."

And?

"You keep going."

Fair enough.

The two actors, who are close friends and have palpable chemistry on stage, have everyone laughing nonstop for most of Act Two of "Godot" as they dance, clown, question, spar and embrace their way through their endless days while waiting for the mysterious Godot to arrive.

"People have asked me whether I'm really laughing at [Ian]. I'm not. That would be inappropriate," he said. "But I do enjoy, mostly internally, what he does, and watching him onstage."

"The characters are making each other laugh, not the actors," said Mr. McKellen, 74.

You could have fooled us.

Mr. Crudup, who plays an actual fool and delivers a nonsensical (but weirdly lucid) speech in Act One of "Godot" wasn't thinking much about the heavy questions of life, so much as he was the afterlife.

"I'm in heaven right know," he said. "When you think that you want to be an actor, you can't even dream that this is what you are going to get a chance to do. To do Pinter and Beckett on a single day with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart is just a dream."

Mr. Stewart said the opening day audiences were incredibly friendly—and he meant it literally, as the theater was mostly filled with longtime friends of all the actors.

Liv Tyler and Orlando Bloom—who starred in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy with Mr. McKellen—were there to support their friend.

"It was like a big family reunion tonight," said Mr. Bloom.

"We've made some good friendships that are like family from those movies," agreed Ms. Tyler.

Kyle MacLachlan, who starred in the cult classic "Dune" with Mr. Stewart, in 1984, was also there. And Ms. Tyler has known Mr. Crudup for years, since working on a movie when she was 16 with him called "Inventing the Abbotts," she said.

Mr. Bloom, who came straight from his own performance about those eternally young star-crossed lovers "Romeo and Juliet," also on Broadway, may actually have answered one of life's big questions for us: How does one grow old gracefully?

"I think Ian's actually getting younger," he noted. "And it must be doing theater. It keeps him young and sharp. He's just amazing."

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